Apollo at War as Leon Black Accuses Josh Harris of Smear Campaign
Leon Black has for months claimed that a mysterious financier is engaged in a plot to destroy him.
(Bloomberg) -- Beset by public scandal, his private life laid bare, billionaire Leon Black has now leveled a startling allegation: his longtime business partner Josh Harris was plotting to destroy him all along.
Even on Wall Street, where money and power can lead to jealousy and betrayal, Black’s claims are nothing short of extraordinary.
What has emerged is one of the most brazen, and most bizarre, Wall Street breakup stories in recent memory -- a tabloid-worthy tale that has shaken Apollo Global Management Inc., the private equity colossus Black and Harris spent decades building.
At stake now are the reputations, if not the fortunes, of two prominent industry figures: Black, the hard-edged dealmaker who ruled Apollo for decades, and Harris, the lieutenant who, Black claims, engaged in a smear campaign in order to overthrow his boss.
A representative for Harris, reached Wednesday, called the accusations “desperate and absurd.”
The allegation is laid out in a new court filing by Black’s legal team, as he fights civil claims from a former Russian model, Guzel Ganieva, who’s accused him of sexual assault. Black has said their years-long affair was consensual and she tried to extort him. And in a countersuit last year, he said unidentified public relations specialists and an unnamed funder were supporting her litigation in a scheme to destroy his reputation.
In a filing late Tuesday, Black’s attorneys accused Harris of embarking on a “coup and smear campaign” in a failed attempt to become Apollo’s chief executive officer.
They allege Harris worked with public relations specialist Steven Rubenstein to seed stories in the media about Black’s past business ties with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Apollo commissioned a review that showed Black paid Epstein $158 million for tax advice and financial services, but the report cleared him of impropriety. Black then arranged for another founder, Marc Rowan, to become CEO last year -- leaving Harris on the outs.
Black has since stepped down as chairman of Apollo and receded from coveted roles including chairman of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Now, Black’s attorneys are demanding phone records as they look to prove that Ganieva also is working with Rubenstein -- and by extension, has ties to Harris. An attorney for Rubenstein said the PR specialist has “absolutely no relationship” to Ganieva.
In their filing seeking documents, Black’s lawyers insisted that phone records could “show communication between Ms. Ganieva’s camp and Mr. Rubenstein’s camp -- between his accuser and the public relations team that works for his archrival -- further demonstrating that Ms. Ganieva’s claims are nothing but fabrications stitched together from whole cloth.”
“It is not a stretch,” Black’s lawyers added, “to infer that someone with very deep pockets is supporting her and/or this lawsuit. Mr. Black is entitled to probe and prove up that inference.”
The drama between Black, 70, and Ganieva has been escalating for months in explosive back-and-forth lawsuits -- starting with revelations about Black’s extramarital relationship.
Black, who’s worth $12.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has admitted to paying Ganieva millions of dollars to keep their affair secret, payments which ended when she accused Black of sexual assault.
Ganieva’s lawyers have disputed Black’s claims that her case is being supported by a funder as “pure speculation,” recently asking a judge to throw out his lawsuit. She sued him last year for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, gender-motivated violence and retaliation.
“The claims in Mr. Black’s legal memorandum are baseless, untrue and totally unsupported,” Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for Harris, said in a statement.
“Mr. Harris does not know Ms. Ganieva, has never met or spoken with her or anyone representing her, has no financial or any other dealings with her or her representatives, and had no involvement of any kind in the filing of any claims by her. Simply put, Mr. Harris has nothing whatsoever to do with the deeply troubling situation Mr. Black finds himself in, and any statement or implication otherwise is unhinged at best.”
Evan Farber, a lawyer for Rubenstein, also disputed Black’s allegations.
“Mr. Rubenstein and his firm have had absolutely no relationship with Ms. Ganieva, past, present, formal or informal,” Farber said in a statement. “These, and the rest of the claims filed by Mr. Black’s attorneys, offer a concocted, ever-evolving conspiracy theory, packed with false information, and are not based in reality.”
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